The God Delusion or
the Dawkins Delusion?
Remember, I don't believe in the god you say you disbelieve
in
School days
provide you with some enduring memories - one of mine that has come to mind
recently is of a Religious Education lesson (quaintly called "Divinity"), over thirty
years ago. It was not long before
O-levels, a hot day, and we all wanted to be somewhere else, ostensibly
revising and certainly not in a lesson in a subject in which we were not going
to be examined. So a group began baiting
the Chaplain who was teaching us - shamefully the rest of us kept our heads
down and revised our French set texts under cover of the desks.
The Chaplain
gave as good as he got as all the practised fifth-form
arguments for practical atheism came out: evolution, "proofs", the problem of
suffering, and the destructive record of organised religion. He was an intelligent and thoughtful man,
well-read in theology, philosophy and the natural sciences - I think his
self-appointed critics were taken aback by the answers he gave, and I think he
rather enjoyed it all, but they carried on all the same. I remember little of the actual words except
his final sentence at the end of the class:
"Remember, I don't believe in
the god you say you disbelieve in".
Thirty years on I believe it is still important.
Religion
seems to be fair game for columnists in the "broadsheet" newspapers
these days, especially Christian religion because it is thought safe to attack,
and doesn’t militantly fight back. The atheist biologist Richard Dawkins has
recently penned his latest attack on religion, entitled "The God
Delusion", and there are others who write furiously and regularly on
similar lines.
I have
enjoyed and been helped by much of Dawkins' scientific writing. As someone
trained in the humanities rather than the natural sciences, I have valued his
explanations of the mechanisms of evolution and natural selection, and it has
refined my understanding of the process of creation. However, I have to say
that "The God Delusion" is not his best book, and I note that many
scientists, including those without religious belief, think similarly. His book sets up a worst case scenario about
religious belief and then proceeds to demolish it. The religion he ridicules is
fundamentalist, anti-intellectual and deeply destructive of human freedom. That
such "bad religion" exists I do not doubt, and I largely share
Dawkins's fears and concerns about it, but it bears little resemblance to
Christian orthodoxy, nor to Christian liberalism. I think of the words of my
School Chaplain and now agree: I do not
believe in the "god" that others disbelieve in. Interestingly, another atheist biologist, and
popular writer, the late Stephen Jay Gould had a very different and more
positive "take" on religious belief.
This is well
argued in two capable responses to Richard Dawkins by the theologian and
scientist Alister McGrath ("Dawkins'
God" and the most recent "The
Dawkins Delusion" both published by SPCK), and significantly Dawkins
in reflective moments has acknowledged that religious belief is not as
monolithic nor as destructive as his polemical writings make out. In an
interview with Ruth Gledhill in The Times
in April he acknowledges that there are far more subtle and nuanced
presentations of Christian faith than those he attacks, and that there are
indeed "intelligent and sophisticated theologians". He has even debated
with them and found them stimulating. He
also has been heard to say that he recognises that scientists and philosophers
can be committed religious believers with integrity and without committing
intellectual suicide - we know that from within our own congregations. The problem for him is that he believes that
they are few and far between compared with the irrational and destructive
religion he so detests.
Now, I
happen to think that intelligent Christianity is rather more widespread than he
believes, and it is certainly true that some people find their anti-religious
stance undermined by its existence. As someone once said to me "Don’t
confuse me with the facts - I know what I think" …. However,
it is increasingly important that we are able to give an account of the hope
that is in us (see
I Peter
Above all,
we need to listen, to discover where the genuine objections to belief lie. At
the very least we will be able to refine our own faith and its presentation,
and sometimes we may actually discover that the "god" rejected by
many is not the living God we are called to know and love with all our heart and
mind.
Roger Clarke
July
2007